70 replies to this topic

[ploggy]

'barcrest junky', on 26 Sept 2010 - 06:44 AM, said:

Yes Guitar, thank you for your hard word.

An undo button too

bj

Thanks for the update, mate.

Like the idea of two emulator releases. One with tools (music to my ears), and one that just plays.

[banditboy2006]

its looking great so far good job looking forward to it


just one quick thing

does the bwb rebuild of take you pick work fine in the emu and does the crystal maze bwb one run in your new emu


and thank you

[ploggy]

'banditboy2006', on 26 Sept 2010 - 6:59 PM, said:

its looking great so far good job looking forward to it


just one quick thing

does the bwb rebuild of take you pick work fine in the emu and does the crystal maze bwb one run in your new emu


and thank you

BWB rebuilds will work on MFME. It's the BWB originals that have problems. Machines that only BWB made, if that makes sense.

[banditboy2006]

yeah i know what you mean

i,e

Barcrest orginal bwb reglass i.e 40p for smallish win

so i.e lucky strike for both

take you pick was done for both companys and so on

[Guitar]

'banditboy2006', on 26 Sept 2010 - 6:59 PM, said:

its looking great so far good job looking forward to it


just one quick thing

does the bwb rebuild of take you pick work fine in the emu and does the crystal maze bwb one run in your new emu


and thank you

Crystal Maze AWP's appear to run ok, Take Your Pick doesnt work atm but it is being looked at.

[banditboy2006]

thanks for the update guitar


and good luck with the project

[Mr House]

Is there any chance of an update here please?

This does not seem very nightly at present unless your living in Uranus in which case there is about 84 days to one Earth day so we're clearly on track.

[Guitar]

'Harvey', on 03 Dec 2010 - 8:24 PM, said:

Is there any chance of an update here please?

This does not seem very nightly at present unless your living in Uranus in which case there is about 84 days to one Earth day so we're clearly on track.

An awful lot to do, very little help, a business to run and ill grandparents.

Oh and project Amber is dead.

Something is in the works, probably for next year now, not xmas, but it'll be worth it. Details to follow when its worth posting.

[£6 In Tokens]

I remember Guitar (and other as well) attacking Wizard when some of the MAME code was used in MFME. I said then I didn't care how Wizard did get it going but always grateful to Wizard as he did create a emulator that runs. I also remember a lot of talk from Guitar that his emulator would be better (time to eat those words I think). Proof is in the pudding.

Yes it may be out of Guitars control as he seems very busy (as he stated above), but as Guitar said if there is no help why not "Borrow" code from here or anywhere (who cares - As long as it get a bloody emulator working and delivered).

I also think a big mistake was made in that during the testing period for Amber it would not run on every computer (you needed a degree to get it going). Should be a lesson learnt that emulators for the creator and user MUST be user friendly.

[fuzion]

Guitar had big plans and its obvious he could deliver. The trouble, as always, is that real life gets in the way.. Can see why coders take the odd short cut here and there. Wonder what percentage of coders borrow chunks of code? Why re-invent the wheel? Its very telling that even with the mfme source code leaked that no-one has updated it, even though parts are just taken from mame.

J

[Guitar]

'£6 In Tokens', on 04 Dec 2010 - 12:55 PM, said:

Time to eat those words I think). Proof is in the pudding.

Just because the pudding takes 3 years to make doesnt mean the pudding isnt better, it just took longer to make.

And yes it IS a better MPU4 emulation because the actual core, ignoring the editor, was a more accurate emulation then MPU4 in MFME (and MAME).

[Guitar]

'£6 In Tokens', on 04 Dec 2010 - 12:55 PM, said:

Yes it may be out of Guitars control as he seems very busy (as he stated above), but as Guitar said if there is no help why not "Borrow" code from here or anywhere (who cares - As long as it get a bloody emulator working and delivered).

I care, for one. And secondly, there is no guarantee that using an existing core will work in the way I want.

For a start I write my stuff in a different way to others, only subtly, but I am incorporating methods to keep things running smoothly, and I assume when you say "borrow" code, you mean either MFME or MAME code. Well, urm, how can I say this, they're both buggy as fook, that's why. DAA isnt right for a start, the PIA's have multiple bugs (which is why frank n steing alpha doesnt work properly in MFME but doe sin FMEF/Amber/Gold), and the timers arent as accurate.

I am busy, and whilst Project Amber is dead, Project Gold is alive and well. Its a rewrite of Amber but in C++, and its coming along steadilly

'£6 In Tokens', on 04 Dec 2010 - 12:55 PM, said:

I also think a big mistake was made in that during the testing period for Amber it would not run on every computer (you needed a degree to get it going). Should be a lesson learnt that emulators for the creator and user MUST be user friendly.

1 It was a PRE RELEASE. Not a polished product, and well if you need a degree to run it, so be it, thats how complex an emulator is. The reason for releasing as often as possible in that state was in the hope that others may see the process that goes on to write an emu and to understand just how much goes in to it. If you wat an easy to use emulator, it wont be a very good emulator, such is life.

Would you ask for an easy to use Large Hadron Collider? No, so why ask for anything else super technical to be made easy.

Anyway enough ranting from me, I thought I was being nice letting people see what goes into it, admiteedly not very well given we only had 7 releases, but if you want a user friendly emu, wait for public release 1, not build releases.

Also the rewrite in C++ means it will work on as many machines as MFME does.

[Guitar]

'fuzion', on 04 Dec 2010 - 1:38 PM, said:

Its very telling that even with the mfme source code leaked that no-one has updated it, even though parts are just taken from mame.

J

MAME, whilst very technically brilliant is a pain in the arse to work with, everything has to be made modularly so it can be set up for different hardware setups, anything from MPU4 to space invaders. SO that means more work to start with.

Also its build in some sort of C++ builder (delphi?) which is now very out of date, uses out of date graphics and other plugins.

Also what would you update? If you have the ciphers for cctalk then great, bung em here and I'll implement it for SC4 in MFME, but no-one has them, or at least no-one who isnt under an NDA, because anyone who works with cctalk will be under one, cos that's what they are for, and only a muppet would leak them.

The leaked source for MFME is incomplete, out of date, and full of bugs. Why would I want to add that to my code? The 6809, the cpu I know inside out now so can talk with moderate authority, is full of bugs in MFME so I have no reason to believe that other cores would be any better.

And the best way to get to know a core is to try and replicate it, and the best way to emulate a core is to know it inside out. Its a learning experience for me too.

So I apologise to those who want it all as quickly as possible, but if I am going to do this I am going to do this properly, and that means writing my own components and not using someone elses. Maybe if I had some more help, it would be quicker, but there arent any VB/C++ codes around that really want to join in so I am left to do what I can.

But I GUARANTEE, when it eventually gets released it will be better than MFME in terms of accuracy of emulation. It probably wont be the easiest emu in the world to use, but by then I would estimate I will probably have been working on it for 5-6 years, if people cant be bothered to read the docs to find out how to use new stuff, then I cant be bothered to change stuff to suit them.

Anyway that's a long way off yet, onwards and upwards.

[westy20040]

'Guitar', on 04 Dec 2010 - 3:46 PM, said:

MAME, whilst very technically brilliant is a pain in the arse to work with, everything has to be made modularly so it can be set up for different hardware setups, anything from MPU4 to space invaders. SO that means more work to start with.

Also its build in some sort of C++ builder (delphi?) which is now very out of date, uses out of date graphics and other plugins.

Also what would you update? If you have the ciphers for cctalk then great, bung em here and I'll implement it for SC4 in MFME, but no-one has them, or at least no-one who isnt under an NDA, because anyone who works with cctalk will be under one, cos that's what they are for, and only a muppet would leak them.

The leaked source for MFME is incomplete, out of date, and full of bugs. Why would I want to add that to my code? The 6809, the cpu I know inside out now so can talk with moderate authority, is full of bugs in MFME so I have no reason to believe that other cores would be any better.

And the best way to get to know a core is to try and replicate it, and the best way to emulate a core is to know it inside out. Its a learning experience for me too.

So I apologise to those who want it all as quickly as possible, but if I am going to do this I am going to do this properly, and that means writing my own components and not using someone elses. Maybe if I had some more help, it would be quicker, but there arent any VB/C++ codes around that really want to join in so I am left to do what I can.

But I GUARANTEE, when it eventually gets released it will be better than MFME in terms of accuracy of emulation. It probably wont be the easiest emu in the world to use, but by then I would estimate I will probably have been working on it for 5-6 years, if people cant be bothered to read the docs to find out how to use new stuff, then I cant be bothered to change stuff to suit them.

Anyway that's a long way off yet, onwards and upwards.

Well said Guitar, at the end of the day good things come to those who wait

[fuzion]

Should of made it clear, but the MAME part of my post was not aimed at you.

J

[Guitar]

'barcrest junky', on 04 Dec 2010 - 6:16 PM, said:

Looking at the age of cctalk technology (15 years old now) I am suprised there is nothing that can be used that is in the public domain. Ultimately isn't it just an interface, or am I being too simplistic?

bj

FM manufacturers seem to stick to the "if it aint broke, dont fix it" ethos. And so they will likely keep using it till they have to stop. Look how old MPU4 was before it finally gave way to MPU5.

Im sure it can be broken with enough effort but right now its just not worth it. Eventually the tech will be dead and we can do pretty much what we want with it without fear of retribution. Until then emulating it would only serve to make the manufacturers pissed off, which isn't a good thing.

Also FME is *meant* to be about preserving machines of the past. So while SRU and Sys83 etc remains unemulated, it seems wrong to spend time on cctalk which is still used in current tech.

[niallquinn]

Well if anyone wants to have a crack, I've got the cctalk datasheets, schematics etc.

[Guitar]

'bertfry', on 05 Dec 2010 - 3:54 PM, said:

Well if anyone wants to have a crack, I've got the cctalk datasheets, schematics etc.

The interface itself is pretty standard, but without the encryption ciphers using it is impossible (very very very very very unlikely).